Evacuation order met with skepticism, worry and dread

Saturday

Sep 15, 2018 at 8:23 PMSep 16, 2018 at 7:22 AM

Rue Marshall said Saturday afternoon that he wasn’t concerned about the potential flooding of his home on Brainerd Avenue, near the Fayetteville Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the Cape Fear River.

Shortly afterward, the Fayetteville City Council declared a mandatory evacuation of Marshall’s neighborhood and about 2,800 other homes within a mile of the Cape Fear River.

Marshall may reconsider if forecasters are true. The river could rise higher than most people have ever seen in their lifetimes, within 4 feet of the 1945 record. The one-mile evacuation zone is so wide that it comes within two blocks of the Market House on Person Street.

“Those persons who refuse or fail to comply with the mandatory evacuation order would do so at their own risk,” City Attorney Karen McDonald said.

If downtown Fayetteville floods from Cross Creek, the city’s operations will move to the second floor of City Hall at 433 Hay St.

At 11 a.m. Saturday, the National Weather Service in Raleigh said the Cape Fear River is expected to crest at 62.4 feet, almost 4 feet higher than the level caused by Hurricane Matthew on Oct. 8, 2016.

Marshall, who got married in August, said Saturday he wasn’t planning on leaving.

"No, because we've got other family members that will be coming here,” he said. "I can't see it coming up here because we're on an incline."

Farther up Ramsey Street, at the Kinwood by the River neighborhood, Larry Johnson and his 19-year-old son, Noah, were wearing raincoats and raking debris around one side of the house. On the other side, a creek had formed from runoff.

The Johnsons have lived in this home off Dobson Drive for three years. The Cape Fear is roughly 350 to 400 yards away.

Their neighbors, including some retirees, were planning to stay put, too, Johnson said. "I guess we're all too hard-headed."

"Negative," replied 35-year-old Mike Jones when asked if he and his family were departing for safer ground. "I just went down to the river. It's not even a threat."

He and another man had just returned to Jones' Dobson Drive home after walking part of the Cape Fear River Trail, which offers views of the water.

"Even during Matthew," Jones said, "it never came up here. We're way higher than where the actual water level from where the river is."

People living near the river are not the only residents being told to evacuate.

When the Little River near Spring Lake rose out of its banks after Hurricane Matthew, water came within a half inch of Bruce and Sylvia Brown’s house on Josey Williams Road.

On Saturday, the couple was among hundreds of residents being told by Harnett County officials to leave their homes. The remnants of Florence were expected to cause the river to reach flood stage about 2 a.m. Sunday and continue rising until it crests at 8 a.m. Monday — about six feet higher than the record level reached in Hurricane Matthew.

“I didn’t think it’d ever get worse than Matthew,” Bruce Brown said as he surveyed water in his backyard.

About 120 law enforcement officers, firefighters and emergency workers were going door to door letting residents know they should leave, said Larry Smith, Harnett County’s deputy director of emergency services. If residents weren’t home, a notice with information about the situation was posted on their doors, he said.

County officials opened a shelter at Western Harnett High School for people who were evacuating. The school is at 10637 N.C. 27 in Lillington.

“We’re using everything we can to get the information out to the public,” Smith said.

The evacuation area includes 94 roads and streets, mainly focused on homes on and around Elliot Bridge Road and Wire Road. The area is near U.S. 401 in southern Harnett County.

Smith said residents were responding well to the evacuation order.

“People are taking it very seriously,” he said. “That area flooded during Hurricane Matthew, so they’re taking it seriously.”

On Josey Williams Road, several inches of water was already near the Browns’ house Saturday morning. Bruce Brown said the area behind the house is usually a “drain valley” that allows water to flow away from a nearby pond.

“This is so much water, it can’t get out,” he said. “It’s backed up.”

Brown said the Lower Little River is about a quarter mile from the house. The Cape Fear River also is nearby.

“We’re getting a double whammy,” he said.

Brown said his wife was leaving, but he was staying.

Bobby Harris, who was at the Browns’ house to pick up a generator, said his mother, brother and niece were coming to stay with him.

“I’ve never seen that river flood, but there’s a first time for everything,” he said. “If it gets that high, that’s a lot of water.”

On Delaware Drive, off Robeson Street, residents have been advised to leave, but they don’t have to.

Among them is former Terry Sanford Principal Al Miller, who stood in the windswept rain Saturday helping his neighbor carry a generator and contemplating what he believes is the inevitable flooding of his home.

“Everything in my house that is important is 4 feet or so higher,” Miller said. “If I get more than 4 feet, then I have just lost everything.”

Miller’s home is one of nine on Delaware Drive that were inundated by the floodwaters of Hurricane Matthew. He said 17 others were damaged.

Blounts Creek runs in the back of Miller’s property. Miller said Saturday afternoon that if the forecast of up to 15 more inches of rain holds true, the water from Blounts Creek will have nowhere else to go but inside his and others homes in the neighborhood off Robeson Street.

If the Cape Fear River crests reaches its expected crest of 62 feet, Miller said, the water in Blount’s Creek will back up, and his home will again be in peril. Miller said Hurricane Matthew ruined the first floor of his home. It took more than 10 months to rebuild, he said.

Miller’s neighbor, Mike Hopkins, has also moved most of his household goods to higher ground.

The water in Blounts Creek had crept halfway up his backyard Saturday morning but had receded later in the day. Like Miller, Hurricane Matthew swamped Hopkins’ home.

“I thought it would flood before now,” Hopkins said. “We’ve lucked out because it has been so slow...If we get the hard rain, that’s going to do us in.”

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